McTeague Frank Norris (the best books of all time TXT) đ
- Author: Frank Norris
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âI promised a duck up here on the avenue Iâd call for his dog at four this afternoon.â
Marcus was Old Grannisâs assistant in a little dog hospital that the latter had opened in a sort of alley just off Polk Street, some four blocks above Old Grannis lived in one of the back rooms of McTeagueâs flat. He was an Englishman and an expert dog surgeon, but Marcus Schouler was a bungler in the profession. His father had been a veterinary surgeon who had kept a livery stable near by, on California Street, and Marcusâs knowledge of the diseases of domestic animals had been picked up in a haphazard way, much after the manner of McTeagueâs education. Somehow he managed to impress Old Grannis, a gentle, simple-minded old man, with a sense of his fitness, bewildering him with a torrent of empty phrases that he delivered with fierce gestures and with a manner of the greatest conviction.
âYouâd better come along with me, Mac,â observed Marcus. âWeâll get the duckâs dog, and then weâll take a little walk, huh? You got nothun to do. Come along.â
McTeague went out with him, and the two friends proceeded up to the avenue to the house where the dog was to be found. It was a huge mansion-like place, set in an enormous garden that occupied a whole third of the block; and while Marcus tramped up the front steps and rang the doorbell boldly, to show his independence, McTeague remained below on the sidewalk, gazing stupidly at the curtained windows, the marble steps, and the bronze griffins, troubled and a little confused by all this massive luxury.
After they had taken the dog to the hospital and had left him to whimper behind the wire netting, they returned to Polk Street and had a glass of beer in the back room of Joe Frennaâs corner grocery.
Ever since they had left the huge mansion on the avenue, Marcus had been attacking the capitalists, a class which he pretended to execrate. It was a pose which he often assumed, certain of impressing the dentist. Marcus had picked up a few half-truths of political economyâ âit was impossible to say whereâ âand as soon as the two had settled themselves to their beer in Frennaâs back room he took up the theme of the labor question. He discussed it at the top of his voice, vociferating, shaking his fists, exciting himself with his own noise. He was continually making use of the stock phrases of the professional politicianâ âphrases he had caught at some of the ward âralliesâ and âratification meetings.â These rolled off his tongue with incredible emphasis, appearing at every turn of his conversationâ ââOutraged constituencies,â âcause of labor,â âwage earners,â âopinions biased by personal interests,â âeyes blinded by party prejudice.â McTeague listened to him, awestruck.
âThereâs where the evil lies,â Marcus would cry. âThe masses must learn self-control; it stands to reason. Look at the figures, look at the figures. Decrease the number of wage earners and you increase wages, donât you? donât you?â
Absolutely stupid, and understanding never a word, McTeague would answer:
âYes, yes, thatâs itâ âself-controlâ âthatâs the word.â
âItâs the capitalists thatâs ruining the cause of labor,â shouted Marcus, banging the table with his fist till the beer glasses danced; âwhite-livered drones, traitors, with their livers white as snow, eatun the bread of widows and orphuns; thereâs where the evil lies.â
Stupefied with his clamor, McTeague answered, wagging his head:
âYes, thatâs it; I think itâs their livers.â
Suddenly Marcus fell calm again, forgetting his pose all in an instant.
âSay, Mac, I told my cousin Trina to come round and see you about that tooth of herâs. Sheâll be in tomorrow, I guess.â
IIAfter his breakfast the following Monday morning, McTeague looked over the appointments he had written down in the book-slate that hung against the screen. His writing was immense, very clumsy, and very round, with huge, full-bellied lâs and hâs. He saw that he had made an appointment at one oâclock for Miss Baker, the retired dressmaker, a little old maid who had a tiny room a few doors down the hall. It adjoined that of Old Grannis.
Quite an affair had arisen from this circumstance. Miss Baker and Old Grannis were both over sixty, and yet it was current talk amongst the lodgers of the flat that the two were in love with each other. Singularly enough, they were not even acquaintances; never a word had passed between them. At intervals they met on the stairway; he on his way to his little dog hospital, she returning from a bit of marketing in the street. At such times they passed each other with averted eyes, pretending a certain preoccupation, suddenly seized with a great embarrassment, the timidity of a second childhood. He went on about his business, disturbed and thoughtful. She hurried up to her tiny room, her curious little false curls shaking with her agitation, the faintest suggestion of a flush coming and going in her withered cheeks. The emotion of one of these chance meetings remained with them during all the rest of the day.
Was it the first romance in the lives of each? Did Old Grannis ever remember a certain face amongst those that he had known when he was young Grannisâ âthe face of some pale-haired girl, such as one sees in the old cathedral towns of England? Did Miss Baker still treasure up in a seldom opened drawer or box some faded daguerreotype, some strange old-fashioned likeness, with its curling hair and high stock? It was impossible to say.
Maria Macapa, the Mexican woman who took care of the lodgersâ rooms, had been the first to call the flatâs attention to the affair, spreading the news of it from room to room, from floor to floor. Of late she had made a great
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